Since we now have a board for all(?) important audio codecs, it would be interesting to know which one (or two) you people use, and for what purpose.

Me myself is using nothing but mpc (-xtreme -scale .90) for the moment. In the old days, I simply used AudioCatalyst (yes I know, Xing, but I didn't know better ), in vbr mode.

The reason for using mpc now is that it gives me superb quality all the time, without the need of testing different switches, and this with reasonable file sizes.

I don't have any portable player at the moment, but if I eventually got one I believe I can reencode my mpc's to mp3 or wma or ogg or whatever is supported without any big disadvantages. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but reencode from mpc is not as bad as from mp3, right?)

So, which codec are you using, and why?
Please, come on everybody and lets here your opinion.

I mostly use MP3, for compatibility reasons. Although i could convince the majority of my friends of LAME's advantages over other encoders (some used Xing/FhG 128 CBR, some Xing VBR), there are no doubts for them to stay at MP3... for instance, one guy spent a lot of money for a Nomad Jukebox, and obviously he wants to use a format that can be played by it

Hi; i'm mostly using Lame here; not much command line fiddling; just --dm-preset standard Ok, since i have a little stream at live365, im also using -b32 -a -h --resample 22.05 --lowpass 11 --nspsytune --athtype 2 --noshort for the streaming. Please tell me when the next free ogg enabled relay service appears. (Make sure it supports push streaming or give us some server space for us NAT impaired users (damn IPV4!)).

I'll really play with Vorbis after version 1 release is made.

I have hopes for both AAC and MPC; let's see if they will they gain momentum and popularity; still i'll be probably pushing vorbis

I'm a mpc man too. The majority of my rips are encoded using -standard -nmt 9 -ltq fil, which has yielded excellent results so far. More important or critical music will be given special treatment in the future. With HDCD's I burn directly to CD-R or compress losslessly using Monkey's Audio. That way I can burn any song to a CD-RW for playback on my HDCD-equipped CD player when I so desire. Btw, those mpc tweaks are something I picked up from one of Dibrom's posts on the r3mix forums.

Just for the statistics, I usually don't compress music, I directly copy to audio CDs.

Sometimes I have several tracks that are not worth burning, so I use MP3. I'm currently using dm xtreme.

For DivX movies, I'm using mp3. The setting depends on the movie. I like DM Xtreme, that I still have to ABX on "non killer samples". I encoded yesterday a bad mono soundtrack with r3mix -b56 (don't know if it was a good idea, but it worked). I'm considering using the raw AC3 stream for 2 channel sound for the next works.

I currently use both MP3 (forcedly, it's an older collection that someone else ripped for me, all Xing@128), Vorbis with my own mode, MPC and Monkey's Audio.

My main gripe with the latter is that I can't play the files when programming on the Linux system. Fortunately, it has a well-working conversion option. If I am getting ready for a long hacking session I convert a few CD's to mpc -standard and copy them over.

The good CD's all go to Monkey's Audio. The lesser ones get Ogged with my own mode. When the Ogg encoder gets a bit more stable I'll likely make it all high-bitrate Oggs.

For DivX movies, I use mp3@112kbps. I find the sound quality a bit less important when watching a movie, and I'm not sure the Linux DivX player I use (aviplay) actually supports anything besides mp3.

For quite a while, I used --r3mix --scale .98 diligently, and I still like it.

That having been said, though I've tried to fight it off, I've found myself using mpc more and more for my own stuff. I just like the way it sounds (clean), and the fact that I can squeeze such a high bitrate into such a relatively small filesize! I use -xtreme -scale .98.

mpc rocks - even if *sigh* there's goofy software patents in there. I'd like to use ogg vorbis out of principle (I use it sometimes) - but we'll see what the 1.0 release is like before I make that decision...

Any new CDs go to flac first. I like Monkey's Audio, but flac is about 99% as good, and is open, so I can create flacs in Linux / FreeBSD as well as Winders. It also has great Winamp / XMMS plugins, so no complaints there. (flac.sourceforge.net)

I still use --r3mix (lame 3.90a) for files for friends, though because none of my friends use mp3 hardware, I may likely force them to switch to ogg when 1.0 hits. We'll see (they do bitch when I give them mpc files - but ogg does promise wider adoption)...

Originally posted by krsna77 mpc rocks - even if *sigh* there's goofy software patents in there. I'd like to use ogg vorbis out of principle (I use it sometimes) - but we'll see what the 1.0 release is like before I make that decision...

I'll definetely fully switch over to ogg as soon as there are no problems with the vast majority of material I encode. My own mode probably fits this definition, but I know what's in the make with RC3 and I prefer to wait just a bit, because two of the things that are most improved are just the ones I had trouble with.

QUOTE

Any new CDs go to flac first. I like Monkey's Audio, but flac is about 99% as good, and is open, so I can create flacs in Linux / FreeBSD as well as Winders. It also has great Winamp / XMMS plugins, so no complaints there.

Yeah, I know FLAC, but I use MA mainly because it's easy. I have EAC set up to make APE files out of everything. If I need to convert them to another format, I can do it via MA and it even handles tagging for most formats (ogg being the notable expection).

Now that I have EAC set up to put all info in the filenames anyway FLAC would probably work just as well, but I'd still miss the 'convert' feature of MA.

On Linux this is less of an issue of course due to the possibility of scripting, but I'd still have to write the scripts, whereas now it's all done for me.

As many may know, I use MPC for my personal archival encodings. The quality is simply amazing and it is the only codec which can reliably provide transparency for me on most of the electronic music I listen to.

That having been said, I also use mp3 and like to use LAME when it compatibility needs to be taken into consideration. I mostly use mp3 when I send files to other people or when I encode files for portable use.

It seems quite a few portables are now beginning to support AAC though and I have been experimenting with it a little more too, so thats another interesting possibility.

And of course there is vorbis. I really hope this format takes off because an open source, cross platform, patent free format is quite a nice thing to have I'm taking a bit of a "wait and see" approach here but it does seem like everything is shaping up very quickly. I can't wait to see what the first "stable" release is like. The possibility of wavelets in the future also sounds quite interesting...

well ive been an advocate of mp3 for quite some time.. i can remember dibrom coercing me back some years back before it was widely publicized into using it. I too have been guilty in the past of using AudioCatalyst with the Xing codec which i feel should be outlawed and the source thrown into the pit of hell.. but i digress. Ive dabbled in some of the other alternatives (aac, vqf, lqt, epc, etc) pros and cons on all of these formats vary but in the end i have always come back to mp3 for a number of reasons.

I would very much like to embrace mpc as i feel that it offers the most bang for your buck considering sound quality versus bitrate however i share dibrom's wait and see sentiment as its kind of iffy as to what the next wide spread use codec will be. My primary concern is the adoption of codecs in portable players. I personally would like to see Sonic Blue include mpc support for the rio volt but who knows if and when that would happen. For the time being i am content with my phillips expanium.

My weapon of choice is the Lame codec using dibrom's presets. I like mp3 for its portability and reasonable soundquality, however i will probably use mpc for my personal archives.

So far my hearing isn't that good, and I have difficulty distinguishing a well-encoded 128kbps MP3 from original, therefore I chose the next bitrate up in case my listening ability improves in the near future. I choose Vorbis because I find the need to support open-source unpatented project.

However, I try not to encode anything unless I need to, prefering to wait it out until the full release of Vorbis.

I'm a Lame (--r3mix) mp3 guy. I encoded all my cd's (4235 tracks) with this with versions 3.88-3.89 and I'm extremely happy with it. I tried the Ogg Vorbis encoder and liked the quality a lot, but I can't play them on my RioVolt... so I'll stick to mp3 for a while.

Delivers excellent qaulity, could not hear any quality difference between aac and mpc at the same bitrates.
However, there are a lot s***ty patents attached to it , so would like to use ogg as soon as it gets worth it .

I used to be satisfied with 128k mp3 in the past and thought Xing was good!!!:mad: Then I bought some quality speakers and realized that I was betrayed! Then I found lame and am very happy with -r3mix. I'm just beginning to experiment with mpc, but don't know if the differences I hear with my AKG headphones are only psychological!

So, I guess I stick with mp3 and switch to the std dibrom setting - just to be on the safe side (for MY hearing capabilities that is).

But why all the discussions about lame "shutting down"? Do we really need this growing variety of lossy encoders? Won't only 2 or 3 survive after all anyway? So why not stay with mp3? Or is its development already at its limit?

At first in 1996 I used l3enc from FHG
Then layer 3 producer 1 and 2
For some period of time I even used Audio Catalyst's VBR, for what I'm very sorry. I also tried to Use AAC, but I didn't like it.

Then I found about LAME. I Used it a lot and liked it a lot.

Now I'm testing ogg Vorbis, and I hope it will satisfy the quality demands.
But at the moment I just Use Money's Audio, so I can encode from it to Vorbis when it is mature.

I'm also considering MPC. It satisfies the quality criteria and is the best sounding encoder of all. Maybe I'll even start encoding everything with MPC, if ogg Vorbis won't be done very soon or if it will not satisfy the quality.

CDR's are so cheap now so in any case I'll use higest bitrate.
I'll just use the encoder that gives the best quality at 1:4 or 1:5 compression. I wont take any risk of finding artifacts later. I had my "Audio Catalist" dissapointment.

If I were to backup my audio, I'd use Monkey's Audio, even though I feel it is kind of bloated and would rather use LPAC with a good WinAmp plugin.

If I have to distribute audio with other people, I use Lame MP3. Can't beat the compatibility of MP3.

But if I'd have to use a form of compression for myself (including video distros, which btw, I would never use DivX for because I absolutely loathe it (do some tests between various encoders and you'll see why) and I truly can't wait for Ogg Tarkin), I'd go for AAC. The simple reason being that I am not looking for transparent audio - I'm looking for a codec that can deliver the best quality at the lowest bitrate. AAC is the only codec that can satisfy that demand.

I'm an APE man, personally. I've gott pleanty of hard drive space, so size means nothing, but quality means everything. But when I do have to go to a lossy format, if I am uploading it to music sites I choose r3mixed mp3's for compatability reasons, but if I am sending it to someone who I know knows what they are doing, I go with MPC.

Though I love to experiment with all formats, there are just a few I actually used until now.

I've been using Monkey's Audio since it started, for (temporary) harddisk storage. I like it's speed, good compression and handy user interface.

Until recently, I used QDesign mp2 at 256 or 320 k for CDR backups. Two years ago it surely was better than Lame (version 3.50 or so)! Nowadays I settle for Lame mp3 at 320 k. Just don't dare to compromise into lower bitrates, I rather make 128 k versions in addition.